Lebanon to complain to UN over Israel violating airspace

BEIRUT: Lebanon will file a complaint to the United Nations against Israel for violating the country’s airspace and causing damage by breaking the sound barrier in the south of the country, its foreign minister said today.

Israeli jets flew low over the southern city of Saida on Sunday, causing sonic booms that broke windows and shook buildings for the first time in years, Lebanese security sources and residents said.

“We have started preparing to file a complaint to the UN Security Council against Israel for flying its planes at low altitude... causing material, moral and sovereign damage,” Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil said in a tweet.

Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri said Lebanon would issue its complaint “against Israel for planting spy devices on Lebanese land and continuously breaching” its airspace, his office said.

Israeli warplanes regularly enter Lebanon’s airspace, the Lebanese army says, but rarely fly so low. The Israeli military gave no immediate comment.

Tensions have risen recently between Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Israel, which fought a month-long war in 2006.

The 2006 war killed around 1,200 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and 160 Israelis, most of them troops.

Israel has targeted Iran-backed Hezbollah inside Syria in recent years, including military leaders in several deadly strikes, but there has been no major direct confrontation.